If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. -- Benjamin Franklin

Friday, January 11, 2019

The GOP's Race To The Bottom

Just in case you've been under a rock for the last half-century or so, Republicans are screaming racists who go out of their way to selectively enforce laws to punish black and brown people. GOP Rep. Steve King still doesn't understand what's so bad about white supremacy, and said as much this week.

Rep. Steve King addressed the controversy surrounding his statements about white nationalism and white supremacy in a New York Times article on the U.S. House floor Friday.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, yielded his time to the Iowa Republican as the House debated the southern border wall funding impasse. King used the time to say he "made a freshman mistake" talking with a New York Times reporter without recording the interview.

"But one phrase in that long article has created an unnecessary controversy," King said. "That was my mistake."

The quote that King said sparked "heartburn" appeared in the article published Thursday about King's role in the U.S.-Mexico border wall discussion and President Donald Trump's immigration policy.

“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” King told the Times reporter. “Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”

On the House floor, King said the quote was taken out of context. King argued he was saying terms like white supremacist, white nationalist and Nazi were "almost always unjustly labeling otherwise innocent people."

"It was about how those words got plugged into our dialogue, not when the words became offensive, which is what the technical interpretation of it is," King said. "It's how did that offensive language get injected into our political dialogue."

So the GOP's lone black lawmaker in Congress, Sen. Tim Scott, is concerned.

When people with opinions similar to King’s open their mouths, they damage not only the Republican Party and the conservative brand but also our nation as a whole. They want to be treated with fairness for some perceived slights but refuse to return the favor to those on the other side.

Some in our party wonder why Republicans are constantly accused of racism — it is because of our silence when things like this are said. Immigration is the perfect example, in which somehow our affection for the rule of law has become conflated with a perceived racism against brown and black people.

I do support border security not because I want to keep certain ethnicities out of our nation, but because I support enforcing our laws. I do not care if you come from Canada, France or Honduras, if you break our laws, there should be consequences. But it has become almost impossible to have a reasonable conversation along those lines. That’s in part why I laid out my agenda on civility, fairness and opportunity on Thursday on the floor of the Senate.

King’s comments are not conservative views but separate views that should be ridiculed at every turn possible. Conservative principles mean equal opportunity for all to succeed, regardless of what you look like or where you are from. It is maddening to see so many folks who believe this and have only good intentions in their hearts tarnished by these radical perspectives.

That is why silence is no longer acceptable. It is tempting to write King — or other extremists on race issues, such as black-nationalist Louis Farrakhan — as lonely voices in the wilderness, but they are far more dangerous than that. They continue to rip at the fabric of our nation, a country built on hope, strength and diversity. It is the opposite of civility and fairness and will lead only to more pain and suffering.

We have made significant progress in our nation, and while there is still work to do, we cannot let these intolerant and hateful views hold us back. This is a uniquely fractured time in our nation’s history, not our worst but far from our best, and it is only together that we will rebuild the trust we seem to have lost in each other.

How Steve King is able to remain in Congress is because people like Tim Scott, when given the chance to act against racism and oppose the white supremacy that has taken over the party, still choose to side with the white supremacists.

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With Republicans controlling the House and Senate and the Trump Regime now in charge of the Executive, there's still a crumbling global economy imperiling the world, rising nationalism and deadly racism across Europe and Asia, a seemingly endless war against terror, a federal government nobody trusts or believes in, global climate change putting us on the brink of destruction and a Village media that barely does its job on even the best day.

Needless to say there's a lot of Stupid out there when we need solutions. Dangerous levels of Stupid.

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